Chapter Sixty-Eight

Carrie

With one day until we leave for Japan, it’s early evening and Reid and I are both in the bedroom, packing our suitcases that are on the bed for a solid ten days away, and I glance over at him. “We really can’t have a cat and a dog, can we? What about when we’re gone?”

“A cat and a dog?”

“That’s perfect, right? We get what we both want, and they have each other as friends.”

“Or enemies. And we aren’t gone that often. Cat and Gabe, and even Connie, would help out.”

“So that’s a yes to a cat and a dog?”

“If it makes you happy, baby, yes. Let’s do it.”

I smile. “I love that we’re going to do this.”

He laughs. “I love that you love it.”

My cellphone rings and I glance at the number. “My brother. Is it bad that I dread seeing him in Japan?”

“Not from what I know of your brother.” The doorbell rings. “That’s our lunch,” Reid says. “I’ll grab it.” He takes off out of the room and I answer the line.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey, little sis. I got my payday today. You rocked this deal.”

“Thanks. Reid and I are a good team.”

“Reid. That part of this grates on me, but the man owed us this deal. I can’t believe you’re living with him. I can’t believe dad hasn’t told you why you shouldn’t be living with him.”

Anger starts to churn in my belly. “What does that even mean?”

“The man forced a takeover. He took dad out. That should be enough for you.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“You’re kidding, right? He forced the takeover. Look. You made me big money so I’m going to save you and our family before he has a chance to somehow turn it around on us, and he’s going to. There’s a plan there. I promise you. I’m sending you proof. Watch for it.” He hangs up.

“Come down and eat!” Reid calls out.

“I’ll be right there!”

My phone beeps with a text and I walk into the extra room and sit on the sofa. I swallow hard and enlarge the document. I start reading and it’s all executed by Reid. “To satisfy the debt, and prevent the release of all negative documents, you will allow Maxwell to buy out your stock in the format of a hostile takeover.”

“Carrie.”

At the sound of Reid’s voice, I stand up and whirl around. “Did you force my father to give up his stock, or buy it out before someone else did, because the board was going to unseat him?”

He goes so very, very still. “I did not force your father to do anything. You know that. Where is this coming from? What did your brother say to you to make you question me again?”

I round the sofa and hand him my phone with the document on the screen. He barely looks at it and then hands my phone back to me. “That is not what it seems.”

“To satisfy a debt. Did you write this document?”

“Yes. It’s not what it seems.”

“I love you, Reid. I trust you. Please make me understand. I don’t want to jump to conclusions.”

His hands come down on my shoulders. “I am not able to do anything but own up to that document and the contents. I can’t explain it beyond telling you that it’s not what it looks like.”

“Why? Why can’t you explain?”

“Because not only will my family lose everything, my father will come at you, and he won’t stop. He’ll destroy you and us. We both will have nothing, including each other.”

“I won’t say anything. I won’t let anyone know I know.”

“Carrie, you will. It will upset you too badly. You will and, baby, I’m protecting you, too.”

“Does Royce know what you can’t tell me?” I ask.

“He’s trying to find out, but it’s buried deep,” he says. “He hasn’t found anything.”

“I just realized that he hasn’t given me anything on my father.”

“Because he was trying to find this first.”

“You wanted him to?”

“Yes. It’s killed me not to tell you this.”

“My father can tell me?”

“He won’t, Carrie. He won’t. I tried to get him to. That’s why I went to Montana.”

“He’s going to tell me.”

“Or finally convince you I’m the devil.”

“Have more faith in me and us than that.”

He tangles fingers in my hair. “Go to Montana. I’ll be on the plane to Japan tomorrow. If you’re there, I’ll know you see me, not the lies. If you’re not, we’ll end this.”

“End this? That easily?”

“I’ve given you parts of me I swore I’d give no one. I need to know you trust me, Carrie, or we have nothing. Go to Montana. I’ll make your reservations.” He turns away and walks into the bedroom as I press my hands to my face. What does he think I’ll find out in Montana that he dreads? Because he is too certain I won’t be on that plane with him to Japan, and that terrifies me.

I force myself to walk into the bedroom, only to find Reid gone. I then force myself to finish packing. “I got you a private jet,” Reid says re-entering the room. “It’ll take you wherever you want, whenever you want.”

A few minutes later, he walks me downstairs to a hired car with directions to my father’s ranch in hand but before I climb inside, he pulls me to him. “I love you. Don’t forget that I love you.” He kisses me, a deep passionate, goodbye kiss that brings tears to my eyes, because it ends with him walking away.

***

I arrive in Montana at midnight on a snowy night, but I don’t care what time it is. I dial my father as I pick up my rental car, and he doesn’t answer. I leave a message. “I’m here. I need to see you.”

I drive to the ranch with snow tires in place, and the directions Reid wrote down for me, but the gates are locked. I’m stuck going to my hotel room, which turns out to be really crappy because it’s a small-town kind of place. I lay down on the hard bed and I want to call Reid, but I don’t think he wants to hear from me. Not until I talk to my father and that guts me. I lay awake replaying our last kiss, and I don’t read the document my brother sent me. I can’t.

Morning comes with my alarm and I’m up and dressed in the appropriate attire of jeans and boots with a coat to beat the December cold by seven. I grab coffee and a donut at the gas station and drive to my father’s place. The gates are open, and I travel a snow-covered dirt path to the mansion of a house where it ends. I park and a ranch hand informs me that my father is out on some sort of morning horse run but he’s happy to let me inside the house.

A few minutes later, I’m in an elegant kitchen with a massive wooden island with my coat on a chair and coffee in hand. Two hours later, I’m getting worried about making my flight when my father walks in, wearing jeans and boots, instead of a fancy suit, with a pretty brunette beside him, dressed the same. “I assume you’re Stella,” I say. “And I don’t mean to be rude, but I have an hour and then I need to be on a plane. I need to speak to my father alone.”

“Of course,” she says, graciously backing out of the room.

“Tell me what really happened with the company and Reid.”

“I’ve told you what happened.”

“I know you were behind Anthony sending me that takeover document. I know you know what it would do to me and Reid. Dad, I love Reid with all of my heart. If you love me, you will tell me what he can’t. Tell me what really happened.”

Stella steps back into the doorway. “She doesn’t know?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Tell her or I will.”

“Leave me with my daughter.”

“He made bad deals and he was going to get caught,” Stella says. “As in dirty deals that could have put him in jail, so he made it look like he’d lost his touch. He had dirt on Reid’s father, things that could put him in jail and Maxwell Senior had tied Reid’s name to those things, but Reid didn’t know.”

“I’ll tell her the rest, Stella,” my father says. “I’ll tell her.” He looks at me. “I didn’t want you to know I wasn’t your hero as you thought I was. I told Reid that if he made it look like a hostile takeover and buried the dirty deals, I’d bury the trouble his father could have gotten him into. My condition for handing him all the data was that you never knew. If he told you, I would get his stock. The dirt I had on his father that was attached to him was bad enough that he agreed. He wanted it over. He wanted the war to end and he didn’t know you. He had no reason to ever feel the temptation to tell you.”

“And then I went to him and changed that.”

“You went to him?” my father asks.

I ignore the question. “What did Reid’s father do?”

“Someone died,” he says. “That’s all I’ll say. I don’t want you to know the details. It was enough to make even Reid Maxwell feel really damn trapped. And I didn’t tell your brother to send that document to you. He knows about Reid’s father and your mother. He hates the Maxwells.”

“Why did you tell him, and not me, about all of this?”

“I wanted you to have something perfect in your world. I wanted you to think I was your hero.”

“And yet, you have treated me horribly over Reid.”

“Because he was too close to you and knew too much.”

“Would you have told me now if not for Stella?”

“I don’t know.”

That cuts, but at least it’s not a lie. I grab my coat and purse and walk past him. Stella backs out of the kitchen to let me exit and I stop in front of her. “Thank you. You don’t know me, and you saved me.”

“Be happy,” she says. “Then I’ll be glad I did this.”

I start walking and I don’t look back. I need to get back home to Reid. I need to see him and let him look into my eyes and know I trust him. I never stopped trusting him.